Somalia: IRIN Special Report on Central Somalia, 5/13/99

GALKACYO, Somalia, 12 May (IRIN) - Galkacyo, capital
of the central Somali region of Mudug and founded in
the colonial era, translates roughly as 'Where the
White Man Ran away'.

Given the minimal presence of humanitarian agencies
in southern Mudug and the neighbouring region of Galgaduud
this decade, the name seems fitting.

The mainly nomadic economy of Galgaduud and southern
Mudug is currently reeling from the impact of severe
drought. The short Deyr rains failed at the end of
last year. The main Gu rains arrived late at the close
of April. Some areas remained dry and it is still
unclear how good the total Gu rainfall will be.

IRIN reporters saw the carcasses of dozens of sheep,
goats and camels. As is customary, the young men had
driven the clans' camels to chase news of rain and
browse. They had moved into Ethiopia or far-flung parts
of Mudug and Galgaduud.

The rest of the families, the elderly, women and children,
had moved on behind with the sheep, goats, pack camels
and belongings. Some of these groups claim to have
suffered severe losses of sheep and goats and now had
flocks of less than 40 or 50 strong.

Women and children are also pitched in dozens of makeshift
huts on the edge of towns such as Galkacyo, Cadaado
and Dhuusa Mareeb. These family groups said they had
lost their small stock and in some cases, their camels
too. Their men were off herding the surviving stock
or looking for work. The women and children were left
behind to seek the assistance of relatives in town.

The drought has caused a critical shortage of water
for both humans and livestock. Prices for water at
the borehole pump are high and some nomads have had
to pay for bowsers to truck water out to rural water
catchments - if ICRC has not been there to help them.

As in the rest of Somalia, the partial collapse of water
infrastructure due to vandalism and neglect since the
civil war will make chronic shortages worse in the
future unless investment is spent on repair of catchments
and borehole equipment, as well as management of resources
and range.

Apart from the efforts of ICRC, Galgaduud and southern
Mudug have received little attention to cope with this
emergency. Agencies have drawn attention to the drought
in other regions, notably in the Northeast, or Puntland.
For example, on 30 April, UNICEF launched a US $1.3
million appeal for Puntland - north Mudug, Nugal, Bari,
Sool and Sanaag.

Galgaduud and southern Mudug were devastated in the
civil war, first in the fight to overthrow long-time
president and dictator Siyaad Barre, then in the feuding
between clan militias until 1993. The hardy and thinly
spread population - mainly from the Habar Gedir, Marehan,
Abgaal, Murusade and Dirr clans - have escaped many
of the crises of other regions, notably the south and
Somaliland. The local nomadic inhabitants are extremely
tough and their clan system has proved an effective
safety net in times of drought - which returns in a
regular cycle.

Their home may be arid and subject to erratic rainfall,
but it is rich in that it is the livestock heartland
of Somalia and the entrepreneurial spirit in these
regions is traditionally strong. A local joke says
when the Americans landed on the moon, they found a
Habar Gedir had already opened a tea shop there.

SECURITY

Local Somalis say they deserve some of the international
aid going to other areas of the country. Other than
ICRC, ADRA and the much-appreciated AMREF hospital
in Abud-Waaq, agencies have barely visited since 1994,
often citing insecurity. A visit by one UNICEF officer
in March was a local talking point.

The Habar Gedir played a prominent role in Somalia's
fighting this decade. They are now convinced the international
community is punishing them for backing Maxamad Farah
Caydiid when he feuded with UNOSOM troops in Mogadishu
in 1993.

In 1994, Caydiid's militias attacked the Zimbabwean
contingent in Beledweyne, murdering one and robbing
the rest of all their weapons and belongings.

"It's wrong to abandon a whole region because of
one man (Caydiid). It seems agencies in Nairobi are
keen to help the Gurti (elders) in other areas, but
not here. They see this as a hyena's den," complains
Dhuusa Mareeb's Habar Gedir Ayr's 'Governor' Yusuf
Hassan Iyow.

Many humanitarian workers in Nairobi told IRIN that
southern Mudug and Galgaduud were insecure, but during
IRIN's six-day mission the region was extremely quiet.
Even though security in Somalia is notoriously difficult
to predict, it appears information is often out-dated
even before it has arrived in Nairobi, capital of neighbouring
Kenya where most aid operations for Somalia are based.

Islamic courts are functioning in most of the area visited,
save for the Habar Gedir Sacad territory south of Galkacyo.
The courts' militias have cleared most armed roadblocks
on the road south from Galkacyo as far as Guri Ceel.

"It's true that we had roadblocks everywhere. Now
we have established Islamic courts. We're open for
business," said Hassan Muxamad Arole in Cadaado.

"Technicals" - vehicles converted into battlewagons
and a hallmark of Somalia's lawlessness - were still
visible in villages. But most heavy weapons were at
checkpoints between sub-clan territories

Clearing of the south-north highway, the 'China road',
allows trade to run virtually unhindered. IRIN saw
convoys of goods such as fresh fruit from Lower Shebelle
heading for Somaliland. Despite the absence of repair
this decade, the highway is in remarkably good order,
as are most local tracks.

Aid workers have been killed or taken hostage at one
time or another in most other parts of Somalia since
1991. Nevertheless, these areas, to a lesser or greater
degree, have continued to receive aid.

To be sure, humanitarian operations have been disrupted
in Galgaduud. In June 1994, European Union-donated
drugs worth of US $120,000 were stolen from a CISP
warehouse in Dhuusa Mareeb and the EU representative
reported 'attempted attack on an ECHO plane' around
the same time.

The drugs were never returned and no culprits were prosecuted.
Unfortunately this is a story familiar to any region
of Somalia. Many disreputable Somalis now regard humanitarian
agencies and expatriates primarily as a cash cow which
can easily be milked - not primarily and only as a
source of emergency or development assistance.

At a cost of some $200 daily, aid organisations often
hire a succession of cars, OEguarded' by gun-toting
youths, from different clans in order to move around
the country. Political analysts point out how deeply
ironic it is that expatriates routinely travel in the
company of men other Somalis recognise as gangsters.
Elders claim they are powerless to stop this extortion.
It benefits their clans.

DAILY LIFE

Despite the absence of humanitarian dollars, conditions
in Galgaduud and southern Mudug appear similar to other
parts of Somalia where aid may have poured in. But
the recent drought and the disruption of livestock
exports to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf have depressed
the general economy.

Local administration - of everything from justice to
rubbish collection - is embryonic. In the absence of
a state, Somalia has been reformed into dozens of ethnic-based,
'pocket handkerchief' territories. Power shifts among
prominent individuals, clan elders, businessmen, gunmen,
religious figures and intellectuals.

Yet the towns and villages of central Somalia have made
modest progress since the cessation of regional hostilities
in 1993. Dhuusa Mareeb, built around local wells and
the highway and devastated in the civil war, is rebuilding
itself. New tin roofs glint in the sunshine. The markets
are full of food goods, although purchasing power is
limited. Six HF radio businesses function in town,
vital for livestock marketing and the remittances transfers
from expatriate Somalis. Convoys carrying goods from
Mogadishu pass daily - but otherwise vehicles are rare.
At evening, cafes on the main street are lit up (from
a generator at 2,000/- per bulb a day) as men sit about,
telling their beads, listening to the radio.

The Somalis' natural entrepreneurial spirit is asserting
itself again. In Caabud-Waaq, in as remote a spot as
one can imagine in Somalia, a $150,000 satellite telephone
system has been recently installed for commercial use.
At $1.50 a minute to anywhere in the world, prices
are better than most African and even European services.

Somalia's telecommunications revolution is spectacular
and not matched by other developments to infrastructure.
But as Daud Drir, an investor in the Caabud-Waaq system
told IRIN, it is important:

"I am here to make money but also to help my people.
Communication is important, for business and remittances,
but also to put people here in touch with the rest
of the world. We are no longer isolated from the world."

The success of private business is not reflected in
local initiatives to establish social services such
as schools and health.

This is where Somalis expect international agencies
to step in. IRIN saw two notable examples of development
projects that are both popular and successful in Galgaduud
and Mudug.

AMREF runs a 40-bed hospital and network of health posts
in and around Caabud-Waaq. AMREF's methods have been
tried and tested by their experience in Entasopia,
Maasailand since 1959 and also Luuq, Gedo region, since
1983. The efficient, laboratory-equipped hospital,
funded by the EU and established in 1998, runs on a
cost-sharing basis. Funds collected are being saved
to help the operation stand on its own feet. A Kenyan
expatriate oversees operations and a team from Kenya's
Kikuyu Eye Unit visits to perform eye surgery. The
hospital also has a programme to treat and control
TB - a major health problem across Somalia.

The AMREF hospital serves a community of some 70,000
inhabitants and in some months treats 1,000 patients.
In March, there were 388 patients, the most common
ailments being malaria and upper respiratory tract
infections. Despite the drought, there were zero cases
of malnutrition. There were 28 cases of accident and
trauma - perhaps a comment on the relative security
of the area.

In Dhuusa Mareeb, ADRA has assisted the reconstruction
of the school on the southern edge of town. Originally
constructed by the Peace Corps, looted in the civil
war, the compound buildings now have fresh paint, new
tin roofs and furniture. Abdi Hakim Mohamed Salah,
a doctor and private clinic owner who says he is helping
UNICEF oversee health and education services in Galgaduud,
says the ADRA-assisted school will soon open for some
17 teachers and 1,300 children, studying the old Somali
syllabus.

IRIN saw a school in session in Guri Ceel, with students
studying from the Kuwaiti syllabus. Most children only
attend Koran school. "At the moment, our communities
cannot themselves pay teachers or to send their children
to school," says Abdi Hakim.

WATER

It is widely accepted that in recent decades too many
livestock water points were developed in Africa's arid
areas, including Somalia, with disastrous environmental
consequence. Yet in the 1990s, the water infrastructure
in Somalia has partly collapsed due to vandalism in
war and the lack of maintenance.

The bimodal rainfall pattern, with the long Gu and short
Deyr, is unreliable in central Somalia. The Deyr often
fail, but nomads say it is when the Gu fails that really
bad drought sets in. This year the main Gu rains arrived
in April. They were overdue by a month, patchy and
followed a serious drought due to the failure of the
short Deyr rains in late 1998.

Nomads depend on four sources of water. First are the
shallow wells, from which young herders raise water
in leather buckets, chanting songs as they work. The
second are the open water holes, pools or shallow pans
that hold rainwater for up to three months. Third are
the berckad: these harvest rain by a system of channels,
leading to the cement or rock tank the size and depth
of a small swimming pool (some 200,000 litres). Fourth
are boreholes, which also serve most of the townspeople.
All villages here are founded at sites of boreholes
and shallow wells. In this region boreholes have to
reach a low water table, often well beyond 120 metres
- which complicates their repair.

Notably the ICRC, but also ADRA and the Italian NGO
CISP have in the past assisted with water services
in southern Mudug and Galgaduud. Before the main Gu
rains arrived in April, ICRC organised the trucking
of water to catchments (berckad) in droughted areas,
assisting thousands of nomads. The ICRC is also repairing
berckads. Elders in most villages told IRIN they lacked
spare parts for boreholes.

LIVESTOCK

Galgaduud and Mudug are one of the great nomadic areas
of the world, at the heartland of Somalia's livestock
industry and on the eastern margins of the Haud pastures
that extend into Ethiopia. The bush here is flat, on
sand or limestone, and generally dotted with classic
camel browse such as Acacia species, Ballanites and
Salvadora persica.

The range is depleted in some areas. The burning of
charcoal for export to the Gulf is causing widespread
deforestation, particularly of important Acacia tortillis.
Elders claimed they have tried to stop the trade, but
IRIN saw trucks stacked with charcoal bags destined
for Bossaso. Elders said charcoal burners had to be
given alternative sources of income. The trade earns
Somalis a pittance - at the most, $1.50 per gunny bag.

Pre-war figures estimated there were 500,000 camels,
2.2 million goats, 700,000 sheep and 300,000 cattle.
This is fine camel country, but too arid for cattle
- many of which have died off this decade in the war
and due to drought.

Camels are valued primarily for their milk, the staple
food of nomads, but are also a source of meat, work
as beasts of burden and provide hides too. There is
an export market for camels, but the bulk of trade
is in sheep and goats for the Arab market.

Sheep are sold to Saudi Arabia both for religious sacrifice
and across the Middle East for the table. The fatty
Somali black head sheep is favoured over Western breeds.
The short-eared Somali goat from this region is also
popular.

The livestock market has been disrupted since late 1997,
when foreign veterinarians in northeastern Kenya declared
an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever among livestock and
humans. Saudi Arabia subsequently banned livestock
imports from Somalia though there was scant evidence
local livestock was infected. Exports out of Berbera
and Bossaso have resumed to the Middle East. But traders
said the market had yet to recover in prices and volume.
Sales have also been disrupted by the drought.

Elders at Galkacyo said that exports of meat direct
to Dubai by aircraft from the town had been disrupted
due to complaints about disease or meat quality. They
said private businessmen planned to construct an abattoir
and refrigeration plant at Galkacyo, where meat will
be checked and passed by veterinarians.

Many Somalis told IRIN they wanted assistance with the
livestock industry to improve their reputation with
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. "We cannot take the
livestock ourselves to prove to the Saudis our meat
is healthy. The best thing is for an international
body to intervene on this," Dhuusa Mareeb elder
Muxammad Omar told IRIN.

Elders also urged assistance to revive their veterinary
services (the Nomadic Health Auxiliary), once described
as among the best in Africa. Nomads told IRIN they
purchased drugs when they could afford it and if there
was a supply in village pharmacies. Herders also use
traditional veterinary methods, such as plants for
dipping against ticks. A vet pharmacist in Caabud-Waaq
told IRIN that he had a good market for his drugs,
but that supply was a problem - especially to meet
demand following the rains - and administration of
the drugs by untrained livestock herders could be improved.
Many Somalis applaud the ICRC veterinary programme
that operated in the early 1990s. They said they wanted
to retrain their para-vets, improve drugs supply even
at commercial prices and restart dipping programmes.

Despite the vital importance of the livestock industry,
there are currently no veterinary projects run by international
organisations in Somalia, apart from the Italian NGO
Terra Nuova, which has been operating in the troubled
south.

MINES

A boy named Abdirazak with a fractured leg lies in his
family's hut. His peers run about in the dust outside.
The boy would like to be playing too, since there is
no school to attend in Caabud-Waaq. But several weeks
ago he found a grenade discarded from the civil war
near his house. He picked it up and tossed it against
a tree. It exploded. He still has shrapnel in his leg,
now sceptic.

Years after the end of full-scale hostilities in central
Somalia, minefields and ordnance scattered about the
land remind people daily their traumatic recent history
is not yet over.

The governor of Dhuusa Mareb, Yusuf Hassan Iyow, was
in a truck which was blown up by a mine in February
1992. He survived with severe burns on his face, arms
and body, but he says 14 others were killed in the
accident.

Local elders say mines were sown in two separate periods
and locations. The first was on both sides of the frontier
with Ethiopia and surrounding military camps after
the 1977-78 Ogaden War, when Caabud-Waaq was the base
for the army's 21st Division. The second was on most
roads and in no man's land areas between fiefdoms of
rival clan militias during the 1991-93 civil strife
following the collapse of Muxammad Siyaad Barre's dictatorship.

New roads have been cut through bush to avoid mined
roads, such as between areas under the Marehan and
the Habar Gedir in Galgaduud, and the Habar Gedir and
the Mejerteyn in Mudug. There are minefields and ordnance
sites around Caabud-Waaq itself (at Bali'Ad, five km
north west, at Daya'an three km east and Bali-Midgan,
three km to the south).

IRIN visited a water hole on the outskirts of Caabud-Waaq
where mines, grenades and other ordnance have been
dumped on open ground. Nomads still water their animals
at the spot. There are neither fences nor signs to
warn people off and youths nonchalantly pick up scattered
explosives.

Maxamad Cussein is associated with a Somali NGO named
NER Minesweepers, formed at the time of UNOSOM, in
which several previously rival clans were involved.
Documents, obtained by IRIN, show that at the time
of UNITAF, US Special Forces as well as Canadian troops
based at Beledweyne made brief visits to the region
to look at the extent of the Problem, but took no direct
action.

The Security Council clearly gave UNOSOM a mandate to
'continue (from UNITAF) the programme for mine clearance
in the most affected areas'. But UNOSOM contingents
deployed at Beledweyne after UNITAF were from developing
countries and were equipped only with metal detectors
of Second World War vintage, according to human rights
groups at the time.

UNOSOM funded a NER trial scheme in March 1994, when
1,338 mines and 223 other explosives were collected
and destroyed around the Mudug town of Galkacyo. NER
employed dozens of former fighters who had sown the
mines themselves and were able to pool intelligence
on mapping minefields. Local inhabitants also clearly
know locations of mines and unexploded ordinance -
though not accurately, as the continued accidents prove.

UNOSOM announced more funding would be given to Somali
NGOs for demining. This never happened. Elders produce
documents to prove they had filed a detailed project
proposal and repeated requests for assistance with
demining in central Somalia since 1993, most recently
in a letter to UNDP Somalia in September 1998.

Jack Klassen is UNDP's Nairobi-based Somali Civil Protection
Programme Manager, responsible for demining. He told
IRIN demining was going on only in Somaliland's Burao.
There is also a CARE project in the same area. Klassen
said one reason no work had been done in Galgaduud/Southern
Mudug was that there is "no functioning administration
or recognised authority to work with".

UNOSOM handed over some demining equipment to NER in
January 1995, but such operations need outside funds
and a great deal of support that Somalis at local level
cannot be expected to handle, including training, logistics,
medical back-up, vehicles and equipment such as metal
detectors.

Klassen complained of lack of funds for demining work.
To get an idea of costs, IRIN approached the UK-based
Mines Advisory Group, which said it deploys 15-man
teams in the field at an annual cost of US$145,000.